


This is the way that waves break

by Sealie



Series: 'Uhane [5]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealie/pseuds/Sealie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sentinel AU fusion, and continuation of The First Thirty Minutes, Hourglass Time,  X Time and Learning Music by Reading -- tying up that storyline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the way that waves break

Rating: Slash; PG; h/c  
Warning: see the end of the work for the warning notes  
Advisory: potty mouth  
Comments:  
1) British English spelling  
2) Sentinel AU fusion, and continuation of The First Thirty Minutes, Hourglass Time, X Time, Learning Music by Reading -- tying up that storyline.  
Spoilers: none  
Beta: Springwoof -- thank you, babe

**Prologue**

“No, no. No!”

Steve cracked open an eye and assessed the immediate area. Their bedroom was wreathed in darkness -- middle of the night, circa 04:00, if Steve judged correctly, and he usually did. 

“Stop it. No!” 

Danny was having a nightmare. Head tilted back against his pillow, his back was bowed as he denied, whole-heartedly, his fear. Hands splayed heavenwards as he pushed at the heavy weight of air. 

“Danny?” Steve whispered, carefully setting his hand on his t-shirt covered shoulder -- it was damp with sweat. “Wake up, Danno. Please.” 

“No!” Danny sat up bolt upright, eyes wide, pupils blown. Steve was glad that he hadn’t given into his first instinct to switch on the bedside lamp. 

“Hey, Danny?” Blankets falling away, Steve slid around Danny, getting right into his line of sight. Danny was frozen, a zone, the first that Steve had seen him fall into. Voice, voice, Steve remembered the instructions, which was kind of nonsense, because he and talking were diametrically opposed. He cupped Danny’s bristly cheek and stroked with the grain. “Come back, Danno. You don’t zone, your dad said you don’t zone; you rant.” 

There was no response. 

Steve rubbed back against the bristles, scratching cheek and the palm of his hand. 

“I’m not doing the talking thing; that is not mission appropriate. I can’t be cajoling you out of a zone while we’re on a case. And I can’t be doing this.” Steve kissed him, simple and faithful, dry lips caressing dry lips. 

Danny blinked. He drew back, tongue peeking out to wet his lips. “Babe?” he asked, confused. 

“Hey, with me?”

Danny nodded slowly, patently befuddled. “Yeah?” 

“It’s okay, Danny. You had a nightmare.” Steve peered closely at his pupils. “A nightmare that dropped you into a zone.” 

“Zone? Me?” Danny asked. 

Steve set back on his heels. He rubbed Danny’s shoulder, feeling the sweaty cotton. 

“Yeah. Textbook, I think? Took voice and touch and, I guess, taste to bring you out of it.”

“Why would I zone in my sleep?” Danny asked almost petulantly, sleepily. “That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Nightmare? You were listening to something that wasn’t there? And kept trying.” Steve thought quickly that the obvious question was, “What was the dream about?”

“Ocean. The ocean was trying to eat me. And I couldn’t hold it… back.” One second Danny was sitting, the next on his knees up by the headboard peering out over the black water beyond the windows. 

“Danny?” 

Danny leaned into the windows, palms pressed on the glass pane, fingers widely spread. “I don’t know what that is. I don’t know.” 

“Hey.” Steve got up beside him, and rested his hand on the damp patch between Danny’s shoulder blades. He had a sudden inkling about what was up, but he hoped that he was wrong. “Okay, pull back. Tell me what you’re sensing? Break it down, detective.” 

Infinitesimal tremors walked over Danny’s skin. “Pressure?” he hazarded. “Pressure.” 

“Okay, what are the animals doing?” 

“What?” 

“Can you hear any birds?”

Danny’s abstracted gaze heaved heavenwards. He shrugged. “Sleepin’.” 

“Rats? Dogs?”

Vel, Steve could tell, was fast asleep like only a young dog just out of puppyhood could sleep. 

Danny finally brought his gaze directly on Steve. “What are you thinking?”

“What did you dream?” Steve ignored the question. 

“I told you. The damnable ocean.” Danny sagged back on his heels.

“Why?

“What do you mean, why? Why was it threatening to engulf us?” Danny looked at his open hand, fingers splayed upwards. He slowly raised and turned his hand and then brought it down, thumping the quilt. A mini wave of bouncing springs reverberated through the mattress under Steve’s hip. 

Galvanised, Steve snatched up his cell phone from the bedside table, and picked out a number that he had hoped that he would never have to use. 

The inveterate insomniac on the other end of the line picked up immediately. “Hello?”

“Prof. Russell? This is Commander McGarrett.” 

Danny watched hawk eyed. ‘The tsunami guy?’ he mouthed. 

“Can you get on your live feed update and check seismic tremors, wave movements to the south of the island? Far south-west?” Steve revised, remembering the angle of Danny’s interest. “The incident occurred at 03:53 or thereabouts. I’ll hold.” 

“Tsunami?” Danny checked again, rolling out of their bed and picking up his pants. 

“You’ve got time for a shower,” Steve directed, hand over the mouth piece. “It might be the last one you have for a few days.” 

“Jesus.” Danny abandoned his trousers and picked up his phone. 

“Commander?” Russell spoke breathlessly “How did you know?”

“What level?” Steve asked ignoring the pointless question. 

“Give me twenty. I’m going into the Tsunami Research Station. I can model the track better at the centre. I’m guessing substantial tremor based on the initial data. But more in twenty minutes.” He clicked off without a goodbye. 

“Rachel, I know that it’s four o’clock in the morning. Listen to me. If you’re never listened to me in your entire life, listen to me now. There’s a tsunami coming -- I can feel it -- get George and Grace and go to Stan’s lodge in Kapula Forge. Do not stop to talk to anyone. Get your provisions and go. Malia will be joining you. Pick her up en route. She’ll be ready.” Danny scrabbled through his bed head. “She’s six months pregnant. She will not be going to the HMC. Chin will tie her up and put her in the back seat. We’ll drop Vel at Chin’s en route to work. Go now. Text me updates.” 

Steve rang Chin.

 

                          ~*~

**This is the way that waves break**

“Talk to the watermen, they agree.” Steve addressed the crowd of reporters in the briefing room.

Professor Russell had confirmed that a tsunami was predicted to hit the Islands of Hawaii, and classified it as low level with waves of approximately three feet in height with a possible one hundred metre inundation zone. Those living directly on the coast had been told to move to evacuation centres or to ensure that they moved above three storeys in high rise buildings. The announcement had been made and the Governor had organised a meeting to assuage people’s fears. However, Denning, Steve accepted stoically, was not going to be happy with the outcome of this press conference. 

“The tsunami is big. I can feel it.” Danny stood beside Steve at the podium, mulishly staring the reporters down. 

“We were told that you, Sentinel Williams, first alerted Professor Russell that there had been an earthquake, is that correct?” a reporter asked. “Do you think that the waves are going to be bigger than the science guys at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre are saying?” 

“It’s Detective Williams. And, yes, I felt a freakin’ massive earthquake.” Danny got right in close to the microphone.

“Massive quake?” the room clamoured and a host of questions were fired at them. 

“Just one, you.” Danny pointed at the smartest dressed man in the room. Steve guessed that he liked a fellow tie-wearer. 

“Detective… Sentinel Williams, you have to agree that guide-less sentinels are notoriously unpredictable. This could be a mistake.” The chief reporter of the Honolulu Times was smooth and so very sensible. A torrent of questions poured in his wake. 

They didn’t have time for this. 

“Desist!” Steve roared. He brought his hand palm down on the podium in a resounding slap. “Calm down.” 

The force of his command echoed through the hall and silence most definitely fell. Steve deliberately faced the Honolulu News Team with their video camera.

“I am Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett, US Navy, and Head of Five-O. I am Detective Sentinel Williams’ guide. A seismic event, likely a subduction zone earthquake in the Tonga Trench, was registered at 03:52. Sentinel Williams identified a threat to the Islands of Hawaii at 03:53, registering changes in ambient pressure and sound. An identified trans-oceanic tsunami threat is directly approaching the south west coasts of the Islands of Hawaii. This has been assigned a possible level one based on computer algorithms generated from data from the two deep water buoys in the region, with a sixty eight percent chance of dissipating before landfall. But this is not a level one threat. Sentinel Daniel Williams is advising that all low level land on the southern coasts be evacuated,” Steve pulled a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. “This includes but is not limited to, populations from Diamond Head to Makaha Valley on O’ahu, Kailua Kona and Kahaluu-Keauhou on the Island of Haw’aii, Eleele to Poipu on Kaua’i.”

“Move your asses, people,” Danny ordered, as chaos broke out. 

 

                          ~*~

“So what if we’re wrong?” Danny asked softly, as they huddled together outside of the briefing room, partly hidden by a column and a large fern. 

“I guess we get a really large bill from the Government of Hawaii.” Steve shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “We’re not wrong, are we,” he stated. 

“We know that the--” Danny scowled and curled his fingers like demented spiders and mashed them together, “--the thingies that fall under water. But I’m not a scientist, Steven, they just feel massive, but where’s my frame of reference? A wave’s a wave.”

“Why did you say thingies as in plural?” Steve said _faux_ casually. 

Danny stopped dead. “Oh.” 

“There isn’t usually just one wave, there’s a series,” Steve said. “But do you think that there was more than one earthquake? More than one dump?” Steve leaned into Danny’s space, staring at him intently. 

Danny shook his head slowly. He held his hand up and pushed against the air. “No. It’s about pressure.” 

“Okay, let’s tell Russell.” 

“He’ll listen, but do you think that they will?” Danny jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the conference room, and the people inside who were yelling questions at Governor Denning. 

Steve could feel a vast wave of resolution formed of belief, panic, fear, and hope overlaying his very bones. 

“Yes, people are listening. People believe. The police and public services are primed. The people are going to move and the government organisation will have to move with them. The state civil defence will be on the ball. Our message went throughout the entire Islands.” 

“And further afield,” Danny pointed out really unnecessarily. 

“Yep, once this is over -- we better run.” 

“Shit.” 

“Yeah, but right now, it’s going to be an attempt at coordinating chaos. We need to be out there helping,” Steve said. “Come on.” 

                          ~*~

“Chin, how’s Malia?” Danny patted Chin’s shoulder as he moved up next to the older man beside the computer table. After initiating the alert, he and Steve had stopped by Chin’s to drop Vel off, but it had been before Rachel had arrived to pick Malia up. Chin, for once in his life, had looked a little harassed and Steve and Danny had beaten a hasty retreat. 

“Annoyed, but with Rachel and the children heading up into the mountains. Thank you.” Chin smiled. 

“So.” Danny rubbed his hands together and looked at their large data table that was busy with layers and layers of information. “What do we have?” 

Chin played the screen like a concert pianist. “We’re linked with the Tsunami Warning Centre, the Pacific Disaster Centre, and the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. They’ve mapped the seismic activity, and linked it to sea floor bathymetry and topography in the region with predicted sea height to calculate inundation risk.” 

“Awesome.” Danny waved his hands at the multitude of screens that Chin had activated with all their pretty imagery. One picture was of the Pacific oceanic basin with all the water drained away. 

“In a perfect world we would have more buoys so we could model the data more accurately,” Chin said. 

“So the earthquake was here, yes?” Danny indicated a highlighted red line of underwater mountains running north of Aotearoa alongside Tonga and Fiji. “Any news from Fiji? Is it still there? Are the people okay? I assume that people live there?” 

“There’s no government in that part of the world,” Chin said. “No central authority to talk to.” 

Danny blew out a huff of breath. “So we’re basing it on buoys and satellites and math?” 

“The data indicates that there’s a risk,” Chin said diplomatically. “Declaring a level one follows their model protocols.” 

“It’s not a level one or two,” Danny bit, “it’s three. Or a four or a five. I dunno -- ” 

“Danny,” Chin interrupted, “my wife and unborn daughter are in a car heading north. I believe you.” He tapped the screen and the image on the largest monitor resolved into a security cam picture of the Pali highway just outside of Honolulu and the enormity of the evacuation. “And they’re in front of that.” 

Danny automatically checked his cell phone, Grace’s latest text had them a mere half an hour from Stan’s very well provisioned lodge high in the mountains. 

“And the rest of your family? Kono’s clan?” 

“They’re heading inland. I called Kono immediately after Steve had alerted me. The Kalakauas have a place near Stan’s lodge. They’ll keep an eye on our families. My Uncle is looking after his family.” 

Danny winced, because bridges might have been mended in the Kelly family but they were still a little charred. Forgiveness was hard won in the Kelly world. 

“So where’s Steve?” Chin asked, plainly changing the subject. 

“Believe it or not, on his cell phone outside the Palace on a conference call with some guy from FEMA, the Governor, and I’m pretty sure the Army and the Navy. It made my ears burn.” 

Chin winced. 

“There was pacing involved,” Danny added. “Where’s Kono?” 

“On her way back from Honolulu PD -- the commissioner is now fully behind the evacuation effort.” 

“Okay, so when she gets here, what’s the plan?” Danny asked. 

“We head up to the Oahu Tsunami Assessment Centre in Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve,” Steve stated as he strode into the office doors banging violently behind him. “Get your equipment. There’s a helicopter coming. ETA five minutes.” 

                          ~*~

Steve consulted his heavy duty waterproof watch. “We’re at T-minus five. You sure about this?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I heard something,” Danny said, uncharacteristically terse as he scanned the desolate street below them.

“Something or someone?” Steve asked. 

Their cell phones were ringing constantly as Chin and Kono, the Governor, Coordinator of the tsunami alert, and what felt like everyone on the planet called for updates. 

Angrily, Danny thumbed off his phone and Steve flipped his off. The rotors of the helicopter behind them finally slowed to a halt. The pilot of the Navy Pave Hawk was a cipher behind his mirrored helmet visor. He tapped his watch deliberately highlighting that they were out of time. 

In the body of the helicopter, a voice querulously insisted that they take off now, for the love of God -- now, please. And the dick head who had vehemently insisted on bringing his two suitcases and laptop (Steve had shot a hole through laptop and kicked it into the street along with his suitcases) yelled at the pilot to take the fuck off. 

“Shut up!” Danny hollered at the man. 

He shut up. 

Danny turned back to the view of the city of Honolulu. They stood on the top tier of the multi-storey parking lot, the top level of which had provided an impromptu helipad. The plan had been for the only sentinel on Hawaii to overfly the most densely populated area of Honolulu to rescue any stragglers. Some people refused to leave, preferring to head up to the upper levels of tall buildings. But, in the main, the response to the evacuation instructions had been extraordinarily wide-ranging. They had scooped up a total of five men, two women and one teenager during their first fly over.

En route back to the Tsunami Assessment Centre, Danny had thought that he had heard something and insisted that they land. 

Unsurprisingly, Danny and helicopters did not get on, necessitating landing and switching off everything so he could better hear. The cessation of the helicopter’s rotors turned the world into an eerily quiet place. Danny froze and his stillness was absolute. 

“Jesus,” Steve breathed. 

“It’s beginning,” Danny growled deep in the back of his throat. 

Past the street, past the blocks of buildings, past the park beyond, Steve could see the ocean. The waves were pulling back as if giant’s hand was towing back a heavy blanket. 

“There!” Suddenly Danny was all movement and energy. He pointed as an elderly gentleman came out of the front entrance of an apartment block pushing a stroller. 

“Sir! Sir!” Steve yelled. They were close enough for the man to hear them. He didn’t react, but he stopped looking up and down the street in evident confusion at the complete and utter absence of pedestrians, cars and other signs of life. 

“Danny,” Steve began, but he was addressing an empty space. Danny was already slamming through the roof fire exit doors, intent on getting to the man and the baby. 

“Civilians in the street,” Steve yelled at the helicopter pilot. “Get her up,” he said meaning the helicopter as he swung around to point at the main street below. “And get down there.”

The litany of shit, shit, shit ran in Steve’s head as he hared after Danny. His gut told him that they were cutting this very fine. The gamble of actually switching off the helicopter’s engine had been hard won, the pilot not wanting to risk the chance of a re-start failure. 

Captain Fraser had only agreed in the face of Danny insisting that he could hear a child crying for her mommy. 

Steve clattered down one stretch of stairs, jumping the last four steps. Danny, jack rabbit fast, was well ahead of him. A door was slammed open and daylight illuminated the level below. Almost there Steve turned the last corner and jumped the last set of stairs, long legs smoothly absorbing the impact. 

The skies were blue, but the air was sucking past Steve as he burst out of the dark stairwell and outside. 

Danny was racing across the street yelling: Sir! Sir!

Evidently, the dude was as deaf as a post, given that he had missed the sirens which had been pealing periodically. But even as he walked away he was scanning left and right, fear riding high on his narrow shoulders. 

Four storeys above Steve’s head, the distinctive burr of a Pave Hawk’s rotors filled the air. Thankfully, there hadn’t been any problem with the still warm engine. 

“Sir!” Danny yelled. 

The man turned, one hand rising, his skinny form was a long question of ‘what is happening?’

Struggling with winds and reflected currents in the relatively narrow space of the buildings of Honolulu, the helicopter rose and shifted coming over the street like a giant black predatory insect.

“Giant fucking wave,” Danny yelled snatching the stroller out of the elderly man’s hands, spinning on his heel, and running straight for the descending helicopter. 

Steve didn’t need any orders. The rail thin old man was shocked motionless by the abrupt kidnapping of his grandchild. 

“Sir,” Steve said, by way of introduction. He grabbed the man’s spindly wrist, ducked, planted his shoulder in his gut and straight-lifted him into a fireman’s carry. There wasn’t time for the inanity of explanations. Stunned, the man let it happen. 

There was a soul-deep roaring. Wind was moving, but it wasn’t wind -- it was air displaced by the growling wave drawing back before engulfing them. The winds buffeted them as they ran. The Pave Hawk was hovering, swinging in the air, struggling to hold position and avoid the street lamps and overhead cabling. Steve had never considered that wind could be an issue. Ahead of him Danny lifted the stroller and child up, holding them as high as possible. Hands snatched the stroller up and into the housing. The guy who had been a whiny bugbear since the second that they had picked him up, reached down, grabbed Danny by the scruff of his neck, yanking the handy strap on the back of Danny’s flack jacket, and hauled him bodily into the helicopter. 

The roaring was horrendous. Steve knew… Steve knew if he looked back he would see the wave forcing its way up Boulevard Street behind him. 

The helicopter swung widely in the buffeting winds, striving to remain close to the ground. Captain Fraser was drawing back on the yolk. He hovered on the cusp of breaking position and reaching for the skies. 

Dick head was screaming at the pilot to get them the hell out of there. Fraser was a professional, turning his head he looked to the left gauging the approaching threat. Steve was so close that he could see a wall of water in the reflection of his visor. 

“Steve!” Danny screamed. 

“GO! GO! Go!” Steve ordered. He bench-pressed the old guy upwards, trusting Danny to grab him. A hard heel clipped Steve’s head as he grabbed a landing strut with one hand and reached for the deck plates with the other. 

“Go!” Everyone was screaming the same thing. 

The pilot didn’t need any second instruction. 

Steve’s hold was precarious. There was no delicacy in the helicopter’s manoeuvre. Captain Fraser concentrated on getting the helicopter up and up. It slewed wildly, caught in the tornado like winds. Steve held on, white knuckled and tendons corded.

His feet hung free as the helicopter swooped downwards, caught in a roll of wind reflecting off a skyscraper. Devastation swirled beneath Steve’s feet -- remains of buildings, homes, and cars in grey water. But the darkness of the wave was rising higher and higher than the helicopter. The immensity of the water was like a living behemoth. Any screaming was blotted out by the thundering chaos of the rising wave. 

There was an arm around his neck, scooping around his armpit and clamping the straps of his OTAC vest as he hung. He knew it was Danny that held him. 

The wave rolled towards them and the force of its descent displaced a volume of wind that tossed them higher into the sky. 

The engine screamed and the rotors struggled. Steve started to freefall as the helicopter dropped -- and lighter, momentum kept him rising. There was a sudden glimpse of Danny’s bright red face and luminous blue eyes below him. 

Straining, Danny yanked him bodily into the helicopter. Hands grabbed them both, pining them all into one haphazard clump of people. The pilot was yelling in utter delight as he rode the rodeo winds. Steve was face down, mashed up against the stroller as they were tossed around the cabin. The baby was screaming, but so was everyone else. 

Turbulence rolled them wildly. A stomach churning drop was met with even louder screaming. And then, with a judder, the helicopter levelled out, rising smoothly and easily out of danger. 

Steve sagged; he was going to write the pilot the most glowing report in the history of reports. 

“That was fucking awesome!” a young voice said. 

“Sebastian!”

“Mom,” he whined, all teenage indignation. 

Steve bit back a laugh. He untangled himself from the stroller. Around him the survivors were also moving. 

“Is anyone hurt?” Steve asked loudly over the burr of the rotors. 

Danny met his assessing gaze with a rueful, impossibly amused shake of his head. 

Steve reached out caught Danny’s bristly face between his own two hands and hauled him in close. Danny met him halfway, fisting his polo shirt and yanking him into a fierce, possessive kiss. Steve matched him wholeheartedly. The relief coursing through Danny was the sweetest, lightest, most refreshing elixir. Fingers splayed over Danny’s face, tilting his head just so, Steve burrowed into Danny in all ways possible. Danny’s clenched fists pulled his shirt taut. 

They had had survived. 

Steve could have kissed for an eternity, but Danny released him, tugging on Steve’s bottom lip with his teeth for a single heartbeat. Danny sat back on his heels and plucked at the damp fabric of Steve’s cargos. 

“I don’t believe it.” Danny shook his head. “Your feet are wet.”

Steve grinned; it was indeed awesome. “I touched a tsunami!”

                          ~*~

**This is the way that waves break: aftermath**

The organised chaos of the FEMA camp assailed Danny as he picked his way through the trailer park and tent maze that was the Oahu Tsunami Assessment Centre (OTAC) in the mountain area of the Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve off the Pali Highway. The State of Hawaii was well aware of the threat of hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes, and had protocols and plans in place. It was still chaos, but people knew their roles. Every time Danny blinked, the Tent City grew up around the State-FEMA hub of pre-fabricated buildings housing the field hospital, command–and-control, and resource supply centre.

He had just returned from another fly over the devastation that was Honolulu in the face of the biggest series of tsunamis known to man or woman -- not that Danny was given to hyperbole. The scientists and other specialists were all ready speculating on the cause of such unprecedentedly massive series of waves in one dump. It all boiled down to a combination of shit loads of subterranean geological slumps and sort of freak high-low air-water pressure thing off to the south, but no one was asking Danny and he wasn’t volunteering information. 

The entire west coast of the US mainland had also been put on alert, and while the waves had hit, they has lost a lot of energy en route. South America didn’t talk to the rest of the world. And Danny could only hope that the Soviet Confederation and Brazilia had their own sentinel contingents. 

There were a bunch of tattooed locals, each easily twice his mass, watching Danny as he made his patrol of the camp. There were only watching, not doing, so Danny decided, tiredly, not to tell them to take their businesses elsewhere. He was exhausted; he couldn’t sleep. Steve was in a strategic meeting with Governor Denning and some guy called Hicks, who was co-ordinating the FEMA response. 

“What!” Danny demanded of the watching contingent. “Is my hair a mess or something?” 

“Danny!” Kono yelled. “Dude, you’re famous!”

Danny stopped glaring balefully at the group. Kono was jogging down the dirt track waving her iPhone at him. She skidded to a stop. 

“You’ve got to see this.” She angled the screen and crowded in close. 

Danny took the screen in one hand, matching Kono, holding the phone so he could see the you-tube video compiling on the black screen. The user name was ‘Seb 1999’, who he didn’t recognise. 

“Oh, that little shit,” Danny realised as he watched himself wrench the stroller out of Mr. Tobias Parham’s hands and make a mad running dash to the helicopter with Paola -- Steve in hot pursuit with the old guy slung over his shoulder. 

Danny knew that he swore a lot but he reached new heights in the video. 

“7,903,368 hits, brah.” 

The video was titled Sentinel & Guide of Hawaii. Watching the wild ride on the winds of the tsunami was as nauseating as experiencing the rush. The little shit finished the video with the giant smackeroo that Steve had laid on him. The only thing that was missing was an animated sparkly heart. 

“You’re totally out of the closet, in all senses of the word,” Kono observed. 

Danny plastered his free hand over his face. “Can Chin work his magic and erase it or something?”

Kono looked at him soberly. “It’s too late, Danny. It’s out there.”

It was really too late, the barn door was off its hinges and the horse had bolted off into the sunset, to overuse the analogy. 

“I better find, Steve.” 

Kono watched him silently. He didn’t know what they could do. He knew what they should do -- high tail it to Scandinavia by cadging a lift on the tanker ‘Colossus’ moored offshore, passing through Osaka, Japan. Holing up in the Tibetan Free State for a month or two seemed eminently safer than staying in Pan America. 

Danny burst into the meeting between Denning, Hicks and Steve. 

“Ah, Sentinel Williams.” Hicks stood. He was a pale man, natural blond with blue eyes, a sort of skinnier, wrinkly version of Daniel Craig. “We were just talking about you.”

“Yeah?” Danny regarded them suspiciously. 

“While thanks to your timely newscast, the public response was unprecedently productive and extensive, I’m afraid that some pockets did not respond with the same alacrity. I have a helicopter from the Marine Corps station at Kaneohe Bay standing by to transport you to back to Honolulu to help with the search for survivors. Your guide, of course, can go with you.” 

Danny raised an eyebrow but Steve beat him to the metaphorical punch. 

“I don’t need your permission, Mr. Hicks,” Steve said pithily. 

“Are you saying that you won’t go, Mr. McGarrett?” 

“It’s Commander McGarrett,” Steve began. 

“FEMA can and will co-opt a sentinel and his guide in a Natural Disaster. I think that you’ll agree that this constitutes a Natural Disaster.”

“We’re not slaves, Hicks,” Danny interjected. 

“Are you saying that you won’t go?” Hicks asked flatly, nostrils flaring. 

“No,” Steve began. 

“Why are you arguing?” Denning stood up. “You serve the serve the State of Hawaii, and its people need you.” 

                          ~*~

“I didn’t like that, Babe,” Danny said _sotto voce_ as they slumped against the fuselage of the old Seahawk transporting them to suburbia east of Diamond Head around Waialae. The copter was noisy and smell of oil was omnipresent. 

“Being ordered around? You’re a sentinel, you are used to being assigned, aren’t you?” 

Danny chewed on his inner cheek, because Steve the naval officer was being sarcastic. “It was more being treated like chattel.” 

“It’s an emergency,” Steve said soberly. 

“He was still a dick, though.” 

“I can’t disagree with that.” Steve crossed his arms. “It is an emergency. And I’ll accept their authority this time, but only because it is a Natural Disaster.” 

“It would have been nice to be asked our opinion.” 

Steve’s bottom lip was folded down in a determinedly disgruntled line. “Indubitably.” 

                          ~*~

They had rested en route to Waialae, for which Danny was profoundly grateful, because when they touched ground they were immediately co-opted into a search and rescue team out of Denver, Colorado, who had arrived a mere two hours before them. Steve had made the obvious crack about Danny being assigned to the canine team. Their role was straight forward -- identify live bodies buried under the debris and flag them for the teams following them, and mark the positions of dead bodies for later extraction. 

It was grim and exhausting work amidst a world that was unrecognisable as a 21st century city. Danny was going to have nightmares for the rest of his life. The coping mechanisms that he had learnt during and after 9-11 as a young, young sentinel had been hard won; he had hoped never to have to need them ever again. 

Steve was as stoic and contained as Danny had ever seen him. 

“Five minutes,” Steve ordered and planted his butt on a piece of dry wall resting on a beam. He slipped a Marine military-issued day pack off his shoulders, cracked open a bottle of water, and handed it over. 

Danny sagged tiredly. The water was tepid but gloriously refreshing. 

“You all right?” Danny asked. 

Steve raised an eyebrow in question as he gnawed on a high energy protein bar. 

“I mean are you picking up stuff? Emotions? Is it... stressful?”

Steve chewed and swallowed and then gnawed off another mouthful. They had met survivors, and been besieged by those striving to find loved ones. Scanning a home and telling mothers, sons, girlfriends, fathers that there was no one alive in the destroyed home that they were trying to search was devastating. 

“Steve?” Danny asked again. 

“I switched it off.” Steve shrugged. 

“What?” Danny asked, 

“You heard,” Steve said pissily. “Emotions aren’t going to help with this mission. We need to be objective. It’s mechanical: find the survivors and mark the bodies. It’s mission appropriate.” 

“Dude!”

Steve took the water bottle out of Danny’s grasp and swapped him the rest of the protein bar. Danny sank his teeth into the bar, it felt and tasted like sugary carpet underlay. 

“It’s headspace, Danny.” Steve reached over and bopped Danny between the eyes. “You’re doing it yourself. Deal later.” 

                          ~*~

There wasn’t anytime later -- the only thing on Steve’s mind was having a goddamn nap -- he didn’t care where. He had reached the point where he could probably sleep standing up. As it was, a tent back at the OTAC in the mountains seemed luxurious. 

Danny stopped ahead of him, chin coming up. The lashing rain of the equatorial latitudes drilled down against their heads. 

“You hear something?” Steve asked, because that was Danny’s poised, hearing stance. 

“Angry people. Hurting people.” 

“Looters?” Steve asked, because rats always came out of the wainscoting. 

“Maybe.” 

“Maybe?”

And then Danny was off, swiftly scrambling towards whatever he had heard. Danny moved like lightning when galvanised. He dodged and weaved between debris like a quarterback intent on his goal. 

Steve chased after him; usually he was faster and had endurance in spades, but Danny was built for dodging and weaving. It was like running through a man-made forest from hell. Steve caught his shoulder bruisingly on a jutting fragment of rebar, stumbled and went to his knees. In that moment, Danny hared right out of sight. The torrential rain dropped visibility to mere yards. Breathing hard, his shoulder screaming, Steve swore -- he did not a clue where Danny was in the post-tsunamic maze. 

“Danny!”

There was no answer. Or no answer that Steve could hear. 

Bracing himself, Steve stepped out from behind the mission-discipline metaphorical wall that he used to distance himself from the events around him. 

Taking in a deep breath, he sent out an empathic pinging pulse. 

There! The flare of anger and fear came from the left of his position. Steve rocketed to his feet and ran, tracing Danny’s path. He skirted around a collapsed youth centre at a quick jog, jumping over a felled fence and using its cover until he emerged on what was left of a busy street. He pulled out his SIG-Sauer, ready. 

And, of course, his sentinel was facing a gang of looters with only his compact Heckler and Koch P30. Danny’s shoulders were pulled high, and his stance was short armed and stressed, but there was nothing inhibited about the intensity of his focus. 

“Police. Let the lady go!” Danny ordered the heavy-set Hawaiian guy who held a young kama’aina woman, encircling her neck with a beefy arm. The other hand held a vicious serrated knife. 

Her dress was torn and her knees were bloody. Beefy had a crew of about eight fellow gang members -- judging by the similar tattoos -- with him. There were all armed, and armed to the teeth -- paramilitary style. Steve guessed that they had looted a gun store, because they had more guns than sense. What was icing on the horrible cake were the small groups of men and women dotted across the street hauling what looked like boxes from the high-end electrical store. Some continued their thievery; a few were stopping to watch the drama. Steve clinically noted that they were outnumbered some twenty to one. 

Communities more often came together during disasters, but somehow there were pockets of inhumanity. A well of violence was fomenting -- this place was on the cusp of riot. 

“There’s only two of you,” Beefy observed, reading Steve’s mind. 

The multitude of automatic weapons pointed at Danny rivalled a mess of insurgents in a desert that Steve had deliberately forgotten the name of. A window broke somewhere along the street. A gang member startled, his weapon coming up. 

“Danny!” Steve screamed. 

Danny dropped to the ground and a spread of rounds raked the wall where he had been standing a millisecond earlier. 

A single shot and Steve felled the guy who had dared threaten Danny with a round high on his chest. There was no cover. Danny was out in the open, vulnerable. Beefy bared his teeth, drawing the k-bar knife back towards the woman’s throat. 

“Stop!” Steve bellowed, hand outstretched -- taking the fear that enfolded them all, and amping it up a thousand fold. The screams as they collapsed on themselves was terrifying. Mind boggling, mind melting, mind killing fear, leaving every single one of them -- bar Danny -- cowering on the ground in stinking, foetal curls. Even the looters across the street were affected. The victim was flat out unconscious. 

“Turn it off! Turn it off” Danny screamed as he scampered to her side. 

Steve clenched his fists and pulled it back, imagining that the amorphous red fear could be sucked back into a tight, focussed ball. There was no logic, no science, it was all visualisation. Steve relaxed his hands transmitting fear into calm, his icy cold, objective calm. He lowered his chin and stared under his brows at the downed gang members, wanting to put a round through each and every single head. 

He didn’t. He took the tangle of zip ties from his left pants pocket and began to methodically hogtie each and every one of them as Danny looked after the girl. 

                          ~*~

“What was that?” Danny persisted, keeping his voice low. “Do you know how you did that?” 

Steve stumbled along at his side, exhausted to the depth of his being. 

“I took the fear and made it their own.” 

He didn’t like the fear that was also writhing under Danny’s skin -- fear of him. 

“Are you okay?” Danny asked, his hand coming to cup Steve’s elbow. 

“I just need ten minutes,” Steve said sullenly, twitching his arm out of Danny’s grasp. Ten minutes preferably lying flat. 

They had called in the attack and a Marine military escort with a couple of HPD officers and FEMA-medical had come to the site. By the time Steve had zip tied the gang members and looters, Danny had cajoled the young woman back to consciousness. She was severely traumatised, but thankfully had only minor physical injuries. Danny’s timing had been perfect. He had heard what they were planning, and Steve had heard him assure Karen that they were going away for a long, long time. As a sentinel anything he heard was admissible as evidence in court. 

“Babe?” Danny tried again. 

Steve angled towards one of the S&R tents, determined to find somewhere where he could lay his thumping head. Five-O had been assigned a port-a-cabin somewhere in the maze -- Chin had taken their equipment there -- but Steve had yet to touch base. He knew where the S&R teams were situated, and Steve doubted that anyone in the S&R teams would object if he borrowed a cot for an hour or two. 

“You!” A man masked in a sickly green and burnt yellow miasma came barrelling over and the thumping in Steve’s head increased accordingly. “Why have you come back? My wife’s still missing.” 

Under his bluster the man really didn’t care. He hoped that his wife was gone -- he hated her. It was just an act, and opportunity to play the grieving husband to distract family and acquaintances who knew that they hated each other. 

“Yes!” someone yelled and they were honestly concerned, too young and too scared to go out search through the aftermath. 

“You!” Steve pointed at the first interloper. “You know where your wife is. You probably killed her when the tsunami alert came. And you left her for the waves.” The colours around him winked out, overcome by pure shock.

“How? How?” He back peddled, both in word and motion, as Steve lurched into his space. “How could you accuse me of such a thing?” 

“I’m a sentinel, dick face.” Danny slid between them. “I can tell when someone is lying. Murderer.” Danny spun the man around and yanked his hands behind his back. 

“Get off me, creep.” 

“I need help here,” Danny hollered. They had run out of zip ties. 

Steve reeled away, pushing the heels of his hands against his temples. Fuck it, he was losing control. Everyone was hurting. His foot went out from under him on slick, wet grass and he came down hard on one knee. The flare of pain brought focus. 

This was the stupidest ability on the entire planet. 

“Steve?”

“Don’t touch me!” Steve thrust his arm behind him, unerringly stopping Danny dead. If only they had let him get somewhere soft. The weight pressing on him was as heavy as the entire world. 

_I could make them all go away _, he thought seductively.__

__“What’s the matter with him? Is he retarded or something?”_ _

__“What?” Danny’s thrust of anger was a railroad spike through the left side of Steve’s head._ _

__Steve braced himself to make then all run the fuck away._ _

__“Stop,” Steve gritted, as much to himself as to the crowd ranging around him. Too much, too soon: calming the press meeting; persistent, clawing fear and terror from everyone around him; controlling upwards of forty people, and murdering idiots. The mental equivalent of the blue screen of death passed over him. At least the darkness was quiet._ _

__~*~_ _

__Blood pressure plummeted and breath switched off. Danny froze, petrified, as Steve simply stopped impinging on his senses. As he watched, Steve folded in on himself, collapsing into a tight little ball on the grass path._ _

__“Steve! Go get some help, you idiots,” he ordered, dropping to his knees. As soon as Danny had his hands on him, he could feel Steve. For one mad, impossibly long heartbeat, Danny had thought that Steve had dropped dead. The feeling of the biological machine breaking was utterly disconcerting. Danny didn’t know that he kept such a close watch over him._ _

__Yet, touch brought information. Steve’s heart beat and he breathed, but so slowly. So very, very slowly._ _

__~*~_ _

__They didn’t have the resources to handle someone like Steve. The coma confused the medial staff evacuated from Honolulu, primed to deal with direct physical injuries. In the aftermath of the disaster, the staff didn’t have access to the state of the art biochemical labs to analyse any complicated blood work or equipment such as computerised tomography or magnetic resonance imagery. The OTAC had a hospital in the central compound but it was a triage centre with field surgical suites and basic, robust transportable equipment like x-ray machines and ultrasounds._ _

__It was all down to the run off their feet FEMA medics until an elderly doctor who had pitched in to help, said, plucking at the back of Steve’s hand, “Can’t you idiots diagnose dehydration? And when was the last time he ate?”_ _

__An IV was set up under the old doctor’s gimlet eye. A young female doctor appeared with what the old doc told Danny was a nasogastric silicone feeding tube._ _

__“Good thing,” she said, hanging a milky coloured plastic bag on the same stand that held a prepared saline IV set up, “we were last outfitted for the Texas Badlands. Lots of hungry babies there. Pediasure Nutren 2.0.”_ _

__“Stopping jabbering and make sure that it doesn’t go down his airway.”_ _

__Doctor Grumpy was Danny’s new favourite person in the entire universe._ _

__Danny winced in visceral sympathy as the young doctor angled Steve’s limp neck, twisting his head back, and threaded a very long tube up his nose._ _

__The gamut of sensory information was intensely horrible. He couldn’t find a raft in the sea of confusion. He thought that he felt the tube pass down his own throat._ _

__“So,” Doctor Grumpy said. “Sit.”_ _

__He didn’t wait for Danny to obey, taking him by the elbow and dumping him on a rickety stool next to Steve’s gurney. Invading his space like a tick, the doctor grabbed Danny’s hands and yanked him closer to Steve. He positioned Danny’s right hand over Steve’s heart, the other he curled around Steve’s broad wrist._ _

__The two doctors effectively worked around Danny. Half-zoned, he watched as the pony-tailed younger doctor dealt with the mechanical: tubes and needles. Danny normally knew what they were called, but the sight of the fine needle sliding into the large vein in the back of Steve’s right hand burned his retinas._ _

__“Emma! I need you,” out of sight, a stressed voice called for assistance._ _

__The young doctor, Emma, slid a checking glance at Grumpy who huffed and nodded, as he hauled out his stethoscope from his coat pocket. She was away like a flash, darting around piles of crates to the main part of the hospital ward tent._ _

__Sliding the bell under Steve’s t-shirt, bumping Danny’s hand away, Grumpy listened. Danny cocked his head to the side. He licked his lips, liking the sweet lub-dub-dub of Steve’s beating heart. Dr. Grumpy tugged Steve’s t-shirt back down over his torso and straightened from his stoop-shouldered stance. He lifted the prongs of his old stethoscope from his ears._ _

__“What?” Danny demanded._ _

__“We don’t have the kickass monitors in here,” Dr. Grumpy said. “You monitor his heart and blood pressure for me. That’s your job. I’m going to see if I can rustle up some beta-blockers.”_ _

__“His heart?” Danny managed._ _

__“Yeah, tell me if it starts skipping.”_ _

__“Skipping?” Danny echoed._ _

__“Right. You watch him and--”_ _

__“Stop!” Danny yelled as Grumpy turned towards the main part of the tent. “Stop right now! And tell me what’s happening?”_ _

__“I’m going to get your guide some meds to stop his heart banging like a trip hammer, and then we’ll talk,” Dr. Grumpy snapped, and left, leaving Danny sitting like an organic electrocardiogram._ _

__~*~_ _

__“Okay.” Dr. Grumpy mirrored Danny’s position on the opposite side of Steve’s gurney._ _

__Breathing too light and shallow for Danny’s liking, Steve lay between them like Sleeping Beauty on a dais. Danny made a mental note to share the image with Steve when he woke up._ _

__“Okay?” Danny echoed._ _

__Steve’s heart rate was now pretty slow, not that it had been that accelerated to begin with -- certainly not as fast as George’s._ _

__“Okay, he’s very fit. That’s obvious. His heart rate for a very fit person at rest was ridiculously elevated, and his blood pressure was all over the map. While unlikely we were looking at the possibility of heart failure.”_ _

__“What?” Danny demanded._ _

__Dr. Grumpy rolled his eyes._ _

__“Look, I don’t have his history, but there’s something really weird going on here. You want to give me some background?” Grumpy raised bushy eyebrows._ _

__Danny pursed his lips to stop the words bubbling out of his mouth. They kept a low profile, didn’t discuss Steve’s guide episodes for a reason, a Big Fat Sentinel Central reason. Grumpy blew out a frustrated sigh._ _

__“Son?”_ _

__“He does guide stuff and gets exhausted,” Danny volunteered, because it was apparent that Grumpy wasn’t going to let this lie, and he needed to know if he was to help Steve._ _

__“Guide stuff?” Grumpy said. “You want to elaborate? Because, yes, exhaustion is part of it. I need to know the other part.”_ _

__Danny shifted his grip on Steve’s lax wrist tracking the reassuring pulse._ _

__“What’s your name, son?” Dr. Grumpy asked,_ _

__“Danny. Danny Williams. And this is Steve. Steve McGarrett. My guide.” It was nice to say it out loud._ _

__“I’m Elias Bundaberg. MD. Retired.” He extended his hand across Steve’s chest. “You want to tell me what is going on so that I can treat your guide?”_ _

__Danny forced himself to lift his hand from over Steve’s heart and return the handshake. The doctor’s hand was firm despite being overlaid with parchment dry skin covering rheumatoid ridden knuckles._ _

__“You know that guides are empathic, right?” Danny checked._ _

__Grumpy Bundaberg nodded._ _

__“Steve can receive and project emotions. But he just exhausts himself, not like this though,” Danny said taking in the feeding tube and the IV. “Actually that’s a lie. He was attacked by another projecting empath and spent twenty four hours unconscious. But I thought that it was the attack not defending himself, but he’s tired himself out a couple of times since then.”_ _

__But the CT scan when they had been on the Island of ‘Aina had shown a possible diffuse countercoup head injury._ _

__“Is he hungry? Thirsty after these incidences?”_ _

__“Steve’s always hungry. He’s a fit guy,”_ _

__Bundaberg flipped off the thin blanket covering Steve and lifted his t-shirt to pinch the skin at his waist._ _

__“Hey,” Danny protested, because…._ _

__“Negative body fat. I think that he needs to stop treating his body like a temple and have a Kentucky Fried Chicken every now and again.”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__Bundaberg stood up to stoop over Steve and flick up an eyelid._ _

__“I don’t know much or anything for that matter about the biochemical energetic demands of empathy. But I’m assuming that there is a cost.” He patted along Steve’s neck, like Danny did when he was checking Grace to see if her neck glands were swollen. “Does he run hot or cold?”_ _

__Danny scrunched up his nose. “I’m guessing hot, but I run hot.” Understatement. Steve was a lizard; he liked to crawl into Danny’s skin when he -- amazingly-- felt cold in the tropical nightmare that was Hawaii. Danny revised, “Steve runs hot and cold.”_ _

__“It’s an interesting medical question. The truth is we need a full blood work up and a MRI and tests that I can only imagine. But this presents as acute exhaustion bordering on malnutrition. That I can treat. The paediatric formula is probably the best thing for him. Maybe,” Bundaberg mused grumpily, “maybe there is a finite enzyme that is used up and the body has to manufacture more? Does he have any food cravings? Weird food cravings. Eats dirt or iron nails or cat poo?”_ _

__“Dude, really?”_ _

__“You’d be surprised,” Bundaberg said, drolly._ _

__“He pops multivitamins and minerals,” Danny pondered, thinking out loud. “Gets ratty if he doesn’t eat properly. Fish. He’s addicted to lomi salmon, shrimps, anchovies, crab, lobster. Gets Christmas presents of smoked salmon imported from Norway, I heard him moan like he was getting… uhm…. He likes oily fish.”_ _

__“No sugar cravings?” Grumpy asked as he pricked Steve’s finger and then squeezed the tip to get a good bead of blood._ _

__The Sleeping Beauty analogy was getting really hard to resist._ _

__“Nothing to write home about,” Danny said, thinking about their Friday night fridge fights about healthy versus comfort food._ _

__“Blood glucose is okay,” Bundaberg said, looking at a read out on a tiny LCD screen. He stood. “Keep an eye on him. I’ve got to go and figure out what I can figure out with the resources available. Hmmm.”_ _

__He stalked off, stoop shouldered with thoughts._ _

__“Knock. Knock.” Kono said, in lieu of knocking since they were in a tent._ _

__“Hey,” Danny looked up. He had kind of known that Kono and Chin were there but not on a conscious level._ _

__Chin slipped out from behind the equipment crates that offered sentinel and guide a modicum of privacy in the busy hospital ward tent._ _

__“How’s he doing?” Chin asked._ _

__“Impersonating Sleeping Beauty. I’m going to give him such a hard time when he wakes up.”_ _

__“He’ll wake up,” Kono said softly._ _

__“He’d better.” Danny pulled the wad of tissue off Steve’s finger, knotting it in a ball so he didn’t see the bead of blood._ _

__“Do they know what the problem is?” Chin asked._ _

__“They’re run off their feet,” Danny answered. “There’s an old doc who has some ideas. I figure I’ll let Steve sleep.”_ _

__“He’s just sleeping?” Kono checked, wide eyed._ _

__Danny knew what type of scene it was. The feeding tube stuck up Steve’s nose and held in place with a strip of tape was an insult._ _

__“Yeah,” Danny said, setting his hand back around Steve’s wrist._ _

__“We’ll find you something to eat, and bring it to you,” Chin informed him. “Try and get some rest yourself, brah.”_ _

__“I’m fine,” Danny said to their retreating backs. “Fine.”_ _

__~*~_ _

__Amazingly, wireless was available and thus the internet. Danny didn’t know how and really didn’t care because it allowed him to Skype his Monkey on Kono’s iPad, which Chin had brought and showed him how to use._ _

__Grace had even carried her own state of the art tablet over to her brother’s crib and let Danny revel in the sight of his little boy sleeping the sleep of the innocent._ _

__“Sentinel Williams.”_ _

__Entranced by his children, the interruption caught Danny by surprise. He looked up from Grace on the screen._ _

__A sentinel and guide pair in black high-collared Sentinel Central uniforms with the gold emblazoned Chopec Eye on their breast pockets stood before him._ _

__“Hang on, Monkey,” Danny said woodenly. “I’ve got visitors. I’ll call you back, ‘kay?” Striving for calm focus, he looked at the screen trying to figure out how to end the call and maybe call someone else._ _

__“Sir?” the guide said._ _

__“Hang on.” Danny said, studying Kono’s list of contacts. “I need to… uhm…” He tapped two possible buttons on the screen, crossed metaphorical fingers, and set the iPad down on Steve’s legs._ _

__Danny stood. “Sentinel? Guide?”_ _

__“Proudfoot. This is my guide, Evans.”_ _

__They were a similar height with the same shade of short brown hair, lightly tanned skin, and bright aquamarine blue eyes. Definitely related, Danny observed, since the flecks of turquoise in their eyes were the exact same hue. If Danny sniffed -- which he wasn’t going to do in a hospital tent -- he would have bet that they shared characteristic base notes. They probably were cousins given the different surnames._ _

__Their introduction was terse and deliberately modulated at the low end of the scale, with no annoying high notes. They were so focused on trying not to annoy him, Danny was annoyed._ _

__“What do you want?” Danny went straight for the jugular._ _

__Evans made a tiny step forwards. His sentinel’s hand came out and stopped him dead, hand splayed against his ribs._ _

__“We’ve come to escort you both to the Seattle Office.”_ _

__Danny snorted; his reporting base was the Jersey Office, no damned hippy capital of the world._ _

__“No way, Jose. Haven’t you noticed we’re in the middle of a Natural Disaster?”_ _

__“Hence the reason to remove you from this area.”_ _

__Danny snorted again. “You’re a frickin’ sentinel and guide, get your asses out there--” He pointed helpfully,” --and work with the rescue and relief effort.”_ _

__Danny sat back down with a thump and crossed his arms. If they were really, truly a sentinel and guide and not sycophants to some nebulous bureaucratic nightmare that was the centre of Sentinel Central spider’s web, they would follow Danny’s instructions. Danny raised any eyebrow, chastising._ _

__“He’s right,” Evans said._ _

__“Callum,” Proudfoot stopped him with a word. “Guide McGarrett will have to be cleared for MEDEVAC. I guess we have couple of hours to help.”_ _

__MEDEVAC? Danny clocked that meant equipment and resources that might be effectively sidelined to more needy souls than Sleeping Beauty. He was sure that there were more seriously ill people who should be transported to the mainland._ _

__“This is Cola and Keyes.” Proudfoot stepped aside revealing a short African American woman and a taller guy of possible Hispanic heritage. “They’re part of my team. They’ll wait with you until transport is arranged. The medical team will be along momentarily.” The sentinel retreated, white faced and stoic. Evans paused a heartbeat, eyes tracking unerringly to Steve, and then executed a sharp turn on his heel and strode after his sentinel._ _

__Cola and Keyes were not sentinels: no Chopec eye and the three hair-fine silver bars at their shoulders and cuffs indicated that they were both commanders. Highly trained and heavily equipped to support their military trained sentinel._ _

__Neither the woman nor man smiled. Their poses were identical, hands resting on their non-lethal tasers holstered beside military-issued Berettas at their respective waists._ _

__A fucking S-Team, Danny realised: a sentinel elite team, deployed to _control_ situations. _ _

__“So you want to tell me what this is about?” Danny crossed his legs and let his left foot bob. “This is a long way to come during a really inconvenient time to pick up a sentinel and his new guide for assessment.”_ _

__For a moment, Danny didn’t think that either of them was going to answer._ _

__“We have our orders, Sentinel Williams,” the man said with a deferential bow of his dark head._ _

__“Keyes,” the woman, Cola, interrupted. “Everything will be fine, Sentinel Williams. It’s procedure.”_ _

__Danny cackled, and not in a nice way. “There’s bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you. My guide is ill and unconscious, we’re not going anywhere. You gonna risk him and by extension me? An assessment team can come to us. We’re not leaving.”_ _

__“This isn’t a regional issue, it’s a national issue.” She made a step forwards and raised her hand entreatingly -- away from her weapons. “We want what’s best for your guide. That’s why the medics came with us.”_ _

__“Wow, that isn’t in anyway patronising. We’ve got a doctor helping us.”_ _

__“Yes, and Dr. Starck is speaking with Dr. Bundaberg.” She glanced back towards the tent flaps._ _

__Danny immediately stood to see over the crates protecting their fiefdom._ _

__Five similarly garbed, but in medical field green, Sentinel Central officers were entering the tent. A gurney-come-cradle was suspended between them._ _

__“I--” Danny plucked at his chest pulling out a blue fluffy tipped dart embedded just below his Adam’s apple._ _

__“Jesus, Keyes, your aim is shit,” Cola said, as Danny flopped down onto his knees. “You could have taken his eye out.”_ _

__The dart rolled out from between Danny’s numb fingers as his hand fell to the floor. He drooped there lax -- a single push would knock him over. His chin dropped to his chest. But he managed to remain sitting on his haunches. Adrenaline and anger was a wonderful thing._ _

__“Was that really necessary?” another player asked. She had the demeanour of someone in charge as she briskly knelt before Danny. “I’m just going to check your pulse, Sentinel Williams.”_ _

__She pressed her index and forefinger lightly against his throat, and counted, expression abstracted._ _

__“One cc, ma’am,” Keyes volunteered unasked._ _

__She cocked her head to the side. Blonde chemical highlights in the single stray hair escaping from her tight bun distracted Danny. Weird sentinel reaction, he catalogued._ _

__“You’ll be fine, Sentinel Williams. Sorry about the bruise.” She moved in closely, not that she needed to get in any closer, and the scent of breath mints filled Danny’s nose. “It’s a sentinel approved tranquiliser. It’s generally well tolerated in the short term. Only one percent of sentinels have an immediate adverse reaction. We’re going to look after your guide. Nothing to worry about. It’s for his own good.”_ _

__I’m going to rip your heart out through your sternum with my bare hands, Danny thought almost pleasantly. Burn, adrenalin, burn -- burn through his shit coursing through my veins._ _

__“IPad, very nice,” one of the other medics said. “Shouldn’t someone collect their belongings?”_ _

__“I doubt that they have anything -- they are essentially, refugees,” another voice said clinically. “They won’t need anything. Sentinel Central will provide.”_ _

__Danny couldn’t even growl._ _

__“The feeding tube, ma’am? Should we leave it in?”_ _

__Lithely, the blonde doctor stood, treating Danny to a long view of her from chin to crotch._ _

__“And the supplement is?”_ _

__“Pediasure Nutren 2.0, Dr. Starck.”_ _

__“Good choice, leave it in. Status?”_ _

__Numbers and alphabet soup were fired back and forth, which prompted a flurry of reaction as ‘5-HT 2a support’ was requested and something was injected into Steve’s saline IV. Danny made a mental note of the numbers and letters. _ _

__“And?” Dr. Starck asked._ _

__“We now have a smooth pupillary reflex response.”_ _

__“Excellent, situate Guide McGarrett in the Stokes basket.”_ _

__There was a rustle and creek as Steve was evidently transferred from this makeshift bed to the transport cradle._ _

__“Come on, Sentinel Williams.” Cola on one side and Keyes on the other caught him under his arms and hauled him to his feet. “You’re going to walk now. Obey.”_ _

__What? Danny thought as he did indeed obey. Zombie tranquiliser. The sentinel and guide had said that they had a couple of hours, but this was a snatch and grab. Danny tried to move his head to catch a glimpse of Kono’s iPad._ _

__As they trooped down the centre of the impromptu ward en mass, a patient in the main part of the tent struggled up onto his elbows._ _

__“Hey, you can’t take the sentinel,” he protested._ _

__Emma, the young doctor who had first treated Steve, left a patient with a broken leg and rushed to set herself before the group._ _

__“Excuse me, do you have permission--”_ _

__“This is a sentinel matter,” Dr. Starck said. “It is not of your concern.”_ _

__“Hey!” Emma rose up on her tip toes, but was only ever going to come up to Starck’s chin. “He’s my patient.”_ _

__Starck looked her up and down. “Do you know how to treat a patient in Empathic Stress Overload? ESO is extremely debilitating. And you’ve got him on paediatric formula.”_ _

__Hey, you said it was a good choice, Danny thought viciously._ _

__“I--”_ _

__Danny wished that Doctor Grumpy was here._ _

__Starck pushed past her, and the rest flowed behind the senior doctor like a flotilla following a flagship. Steve in the central position, cradled in the Stokes basket, was the aircraft carrier._ _

__Fucking Navy, Danny thought, as he tried to dig in his heels, but only stumbled. Cola and Keyes had strong grips._ _

__The sun outside was bright and the sky was blue._ _

__It should have been overcast and raining._ _

__Danny’s hearing pulsated too loud and then too low. He picked up voices. Words seemed to travel like wildfire, frittering over his skin. There was a litany of disquiet. They stopped abruptly and it wasn’t his hearing that was out of control, he realised, but lots of people talking. Danny gritted his teeth and tasted blood._ _

__Then he lifted his head._ _

__A man stood directly before them, one of the tattooed guys that Danny had registered as possibly threatening as he had patrolled the camp. He was a mountain of a man, wrestler tall and broad, biceps bulged as he crossed his arms over his muscled chest._ _

__“Where are you taking the Sentinel of Hawaii?” the local asked, surprisingly softly._ _

__“It’s none of your business,” Starck replied. “Move aside.”_ _

__“No,” he said simply._ _

__“You ain’t taking our sentinel.” Another man stepped up beside the ringleader. Then another. A woman followed, holding hands with her young daughter._ _

__The crowd around them shifted, circling, standing tall. A word echoed between them ‘Sentinel’. Ten faces, twenty faces, fifty faces, Kama’aina, Caucasian, African America, young, old, middle aged, a hundred faces. The crowd around them grew._ _

__Starck stood tall, coolly. “The guide needs medical attention, attention that he can’t get here. We have to take him to the mainland.”_ _

__“That true? Eh?” The man lifted his chin. “Doesn’t look like our sentinel agrees, since you had to drug him to get him to come with you.”_ _

__Danny’s knew that his smile had a hint of shark tooth behind it. He flexed his fingers, revelling in the slight movement. Keyes’ gun was safely secured by a latch-thumb release. The Velcro strap on Cola’s was hanging free, ready for immediate response, but also an easy steal -- he would focus on her first._ _

__“Sentinels can be irrational when they erroneously think that their guide is in danger,” Starck said. “Sentinel Williams was stressed because his guide is ill. He agreed to the sedative.”_ _

__“Now that is a lie of magnificent proportions.” Chin stepped past the local, his favourite Remington rifle held easily by his side. “Danny would never agree to that. Put the basket down and step away from Commander McGarrett and Detective Williams. Now.”_ _

__Kono emerged from the crowd to the west of Danny’s position, coming in close beside Cola._ _

__“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said nicely, jabbing the business end of her Kel-Tec in Cola’s ribs under her body armour._ _

__“You’re insane. Guide McGarrett is seriously ill.” Starck faced off against Chin._ _

__“Well, I’m sure that you can give us some information on how to treat him,” Chin said pleasantly. “Now, back off.”_ _

__Lips pursed, angrily, Starck nodded. Carefully, the medics placed Steve’s litter on the grass._ _

__If he could have, Danny would have cheered._ _

__~*~_ _

__Steve swallowed around something that he couldn’t swallow -- actually it was more like a dry cough that wasn’t a dry cough. He managed to crack open his eyes a mere fraction, and roman legionaries resolved into view above him complete with plumed helmets carrying him on a golden plinth? Steve closed his eyes and relaxed into the swaying hammock suspended between palm trees, fanned with ostrich feathers held by human cylons from Battlestar Galactica -- one of them looked like Kono._ _

__Impossibly later he opened his eyes to see a bare light bulb hanging overhead from a cable. Tiredly, he mapped the light’s electric cable twisting along a metal frame and then angling down a green wall. Belatedly, Steve realised that he was in a tent. He tried to sit up and went nowhere._ _

__“What the Hell?” Twisting, Steve looked to the right and left, figuring out that he was cocooned and secured in a metal and plastic basket. Beside him, Danny was slumped on a stool propped up against a pile of crates, mouth open as he snored. “Danny?”_ _

__Steve jerked against the straps across his chest, but he wasn’t going anywhere._ _

__This was ridiculous._ _

__“Danny!”_ _

__“Shush” A young woman bent over him, tips of her pony tail brushing over his nose. “You’ll wake the sentinel.”_ _

__“Undo the straps now, miss,” Steve ordered._ _

__“It’s doctor. Dr. Emma Adams,” she said as she plucked at the straps. “How are you feeling?”_ _

__“Explain to me what’s happening,” Steve demanded._ _

__“I believe that it’s called Empathic Stress Overload,” she said musingly._ _

__“What?” Steve asked as the quick-release clasp across his chest fell free. He sat up, reached over and thumped Danny right on the meaty part of his thigh. “Danny?”_ _

__“What?” Danny jerked awake, flailing to stay perched on his stool._ _

__The world did a really weird swoop-around and Steve kind of flopped back down. Dr. Adams gently pressed her fingers to his throat._ _

__“Relax, Commander McGarrett. Your body has been under considerable stress.” She squeaked, as she was bodily lifted away._ _

__“Steve?” Suddenly, Danny leaned right into his space, stroking his fingers down the sides of his face, like dabbling in a brook. “You okay?”_ _

__“What’s happened?” Steve closed one eye and squinted up at Danny -- he had an astoundingly bad headache. “I need an update. Chin, Kono, you, me? The kids at the Forge? My dog? Did I pass out?”_ _

__“I think technically it was swooning. It was very dramatic. You scared me, you big goof.” Danny rested his forehead against Steve’s. “You also need a shower.”_ _

__“Shower?” Steve echoed and was appalled at how feebly it came out._ _

__“Well, yes. Searching through the better part of Honolulu for days, fights with looters, the you-know-what, _swooning_ , kidnapping attempts,” Danny followed up his list with a gentle peck of a kiss. “You need a very long, hot shower, Stinky.”_ _

__“Kidnapping?” Steve whispered so very, very close. “Are you okay?”_ _

__“Oh, boy, you have no idea,” Danny half-cackled, half snorted. “I am now the Sentinel of Hawaii. I’m feeling kind of honoured. I had hoped someday, you know, in fullness off time to be the Sentinel of New Jersey, but in the scheme of things…”_ _

__“Update,” Steve ordered._ _

__Danny straightened. He laid a gentle hand over Steve’s heart. “It was, in all senses of the word, _awesome_. They came for us, Sentinel Central, and the people of Hawaii, every annoying last one of them, wouldn’t let them take us.” _ _

__“What?”_ _

__And Danny began to explain, complete with all the hand waving and gesticulation that such an account needed. Steve’s swan dive outside the S &R tent was the back of Danny’s palm flopping smartly on his chest. Apparently being very annoying by sleeping too much and needing medical attention meant that he deserved the punch to his bicep. The visiting sentinel and guide were dismissed with mocking speech marks. Danny tapped repeatedly over his breast bone, annoyed that he had been darted with a _zombie tranquiliser_ of all things! He went quiet, though, when he spoke of the medics stealing them away. He looked upwards towards the sky beyond the tent as he described a wall of people that refused to let the S-Team take them away. Then with a grin, Danny spread his arms wide as he declared that he was the Sentinel of Hawaii._ _

__“That’s…. That’s…,” Steve said, as Danny finished. He closed his eyes thinking. “So the S-Team and the medics, where are they?”_ _

__“They were summarily escorted to the Marine Corps Base at Kaneohe Bay, put on their plane and instructed to leave. But not before Chin liberated them of their equipment.”_ _

__Steve opened an eye. “Why?”_ _

__“Because they were set up to come and get you, and me, of course. Chin’s working on decrypting the witch’s tablet, which we hope has a lot of medical files on it.”_ _

__“Is that what this is about?” Steve picked at the tape twisted over his nose and stretched over his cheek, and then felt along the thin tube. It was kind of strange. He couldn’t quite map the sensation in the back of his throat, but not being able to breathe through his right nostril, his dry throat, and hovering on the edge of a cough was really annoying. “Can I get this out? And I want out of this Stokes basket. I can’t believe you left me in a litter.”_ _

__“Really handy if we needed to move you quickly,” Danny said. “And you looked kind of cute, all wrapped up.”_ _

__Steve gave him the hairy eyeball._ _

__Danny shrugged. “Doc?” he asked, turning to the young woman._ _

__“I didn’t like the way that you almost passed out when you sat up, but let’s get you into a more comfortable bed, get that feeding tube out, and see how you tolerate solid food.”_ _

__“Yes, it’s time that he was weaned,” Danny said, with a toothy smile._ _

__“Excuse me?” Steve asked._ _

__~*~_ _

__A hot shower in the shower block immeasurably improved Steve’s mood._ _

__“You all right?” Danny asked from the other side of the cubicle for the hundredth time. Under any other circumstances, Danny would have been in the shower with him. But not in a communal shower block._ _

__Steve rinsed the final suds away. It had been a long twenty four hours after he had been upgraded to a cot, albeit he had slept through most of them. Danny had been like a Rottweiler guarding his back. It was intense. Steve had trained and worked with the best men in the business, loyal and trustworthy. They had had each others’ backs. Steve would have died for his men and vice versa. Danny, however, would destroy the world to save the people he loved._ _

__“What’s taking so long? The water is finite,” Danny bitched. “So much for your navy showers. You know something? That just sounds rude…”_ _

__“Pass my towel over.” Steve flicked the water off._ _

__Danny fired it over the top of the curtain, so it landed right on Steve’s head. Rolling his eyes, Steve scrubbed his short hair dry, and then methodically dried chest, limbs, and butt. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he slipped out of the cubicle._ _

__“Ah, that’s better.” Danny sniffed, he patted the bench at his side._ _

__“Clothes?” Steve asked._ _

__Danny nodded at the pile on the bench. It was late evening but Steve still checked to see if any kids -- there were none -- were around. He dropped the towel and pulled on a pair of boxer briefs._ _

__“Are these yours?” he asked, plucking at the white cotton._ _

__“Maybe,” Danny said, looking up to the ceiling. “All our stuff got thrown in the same backpack.”_ _

__Steve shrugged. If Danny wanted him to wear his underwear, as long as it was clean, Steve didn’t mind the hint of possessiveness. He dropped beside Danny, curled up his foot onto his lap and dried carefully between his toes. He bumped his shoulder into Danny’s._ _

__“What?” Danny asked, suddenly sullen._ _

__“What have I missed? Apart from kidnapping attempts, of course. I know that the kids are all right. What’s Denning said about Sentinel Central?”_ _

__“Denning? What’s Denning got to do about it?”_ _

__Steve rolled his eyes. “As the State elected governor he’s going to have an opinion. Sentinel Central is an official agency of the government. I suspect that the SC will go to the governor when they next come for us.”_ _

__Danny glowered. “Denning doesn’t really like us. Shit.”_ _

__Still sitting, Steve wrestled on a pair of cargos, keeping his dry, clean feet off the wet floor._ _

__“Historically, the gubernatorial power of the Hawaiian State offers an almost unprecedented degree of autonomy -- mainly because it’s in the middle of the Pacific. If the people are invested in keeping the Sentinel of Hawaii on the Islands--” Steve tucked his feet into his walking boots and stood so he could fasten his pants, “--Denning will likely be politic about the matter.”_ _

__“Is that a roundabout way of saying that if the voters want a sentinel and guide, he’ll fight for us?”_ _

__“Within the letter of the law.” Steve picked up a t-shirt. It was the intense shade of turquoise that Danny always said brought out the best colour in his eyes._ _

__Danny shrugged, disavowing any machinations to dress Steve in the colours that he liked best._ _

__“So our plan is?” Danny asked._ _

__Steve rubbed at his cleanly shaven jaw, pondering. But on reflection, it seemed pretty straightforward. “Continue being indispensible.”_ _

__“Oh, great, no pressure then.” Danny curled over, elbows on his knees and plonked his chin on his hands._ _

__“Come on, Boo-Boo.” Steve bent over and kissed the top of Danny’s golden head. “Things to do.”_ _

__“Boo-Boo?” Danny straightened in a horrified line. “Boo-Boo? I’m not the sidekick.”_ _

__“If you say so,” Steve said, heading for the door, knowing that Danny was on his heels._ _

__“Not the sidekick!”_ _

__~*~_ _

__Danny led him through the Tent City to the port-a-cabin where Chin had set up their camp with cots and equipment. The hubbub of the OTAC was now a soothing balm to Steve’s senses, especially with Danny at his side. Campfires and barbeques were out, and little pockets of humanity were dotted here and there. Someone, somewhere in the distance, was playing a guitar and a young, female voice sang in accompaniment._ _

__“Quiet?”_ _

__“Hmmm,” Danny mused, hands in his pockets. “People are slowly heading back, especially those that are away from the identified major inundation zones. It’s time to rebuild.”_ _

__“It’s a mess, but it’s the buildings, not people. Most people got out, and they can go back when it’s clear.”_ _

__“They set that up like a movie theatre. News and updates, mainly.” Unable to keep his hands in his pockets for longer than ten seconds, Danny pointed to a large tent. “They got advisors and people. But the folk around here have done this before, I guess.”_ _

__“Yeah,” Steve acknowledged. “Ask Mamo sometime. He knows how it goes. The community rallies.”_ _

__“That’s kind of what we’re depending on,” Danny said cynically._ _

__“You gotta have faith, Danny.” Steve stopped dead and set his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “The alternative is that we book. We made that decision, though, when we didn’t head for the hills when we made the tsunami announcement.”_ _

__“So you’re saying that we have to see how this plays out?”_ _

__“I think that we play the cards that we’ve dealt, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a say in the game.”_ _

__“What the Hell does that mean?” Danny bit like a raptor._ _

__Steve slipped his arm around Danny’s back and tugged the shorter man along, fitting him comfortably against his side. A held Danny was a calmer Danny. One day, Steve was going to ask Mrs. Williams if she had swaddled Danny to keep him quiet and content when he was baby._ _

__“I don’t have a crystal ball, Danno,” Steve said, softly so only a Sentinel would hear. “We have to be canny. We need information, we need to understand threat and risk and respond appropriately. Chin, Kono, Max -- our Ohana are part of that. We simply continue playing the long game, demonstrating that we are a functional and practical sentinel and guide pair, no surprises.”_ _

__Danny coughed. “Navy.”_ _

__Steve acknowledged that with a shrug. But he was in the reserves instead of deployed in the field. No doubt sometime in the near future he would get a call from the US Navy and would be asked to present himself at Pearl Harbour-Hickam. There was a significant chance that forced retirement was in his immediate future. But the fact was that he was now an overtly committed guide to a confirmed sentinel -- part of an established pair. Traditionally, you didn’t separate established pairs, since it rarely went well for the person who was trying to separate them. Their rights, ironically, were protected by Sentinel Central._ _

__“Sentinel. Guide.” There was a flash of a camera and they were immortalised, glaring at a young reporter. “Honolulu Times, can I--”_ _

__“You should know better,” Steve barked, holding out his hand. “Give me your camera. Now!”_ _

__Bug-eyed, the young reporter handed across her Nikon camera._ _

__“We’re off duty,” Danny said lazily, seemingly content to let Steve handle the intrusion. “You’re also invading our space -- sensitive and volatile sentinel and guide space -- which is not a good idea.”_ _

__Steve flipped over the camera, clicked open the housing, and deftly extracted the memory card with his fingernails, all the while keeping Danny close. Danny bore the camera close to his face with remarkable equanimity, especially when Steve dropped the card in his shirt breast pocket. Steve put it down to the reporter being clearly a sparkly new cub-reporter and her long brown hair and big eyes matching a certain young Grace Williams._ _

__“You want an interview ask,” Steve said, tossing over the camera. He held his index finger up before the reporter could speak. He neither had the time nor inclination to put up with reporters at the best of times. “It is not going to happen tonight. We’ve had a long week. And frankly, I’m not really disposed to talk to you given your paparazzi tendencies.”_ _

__“I’m sorry,” she peeped._ _

__“Good,” Steve growled, “Don’t do it again.”_ _

__“Valuable lesson learned, kiddo.” Still under his arm, Danny moved away, and perforce, Steve moved with him. “Come on, Babe.”_ _

__“I thought guides were supposed to be nice,” she complained softly, and huffed. “What kind of guide are you?”_ _

__Danny peered over his shoulder, and said, “The new kind.”_ _

___fin_ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> This story involves a tsunami disaster; reference to 9/11 terrorist attacks and aftermath, plus violence/threat to a woman (which is prevented).


End file.
